


Revisionist History (Or Five Alternative Timelines on a Fifty-First-Century Spaceship)

by runningscissors



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Gore, Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace, F/M, Gen, References to Canon, Season/Series 02, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningscissors/pseuds/runningscissors
Summary: "It could happen like this..." The world spins off in a million directions with every action either taken or not taken.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Revisionist History (Or Five Alternative Timelines on a Fifty-First-Century Spaceship)

**Author's Note:**

> Like many, I spent these past weird months rewatching DW, and like many, skipped GitF because canonically, it's absolute rubbish. Also, like many, I wrote to deal with it, including several fandom tropes common in GitF AUs. This is maybe the grimmest thing I've ever written. 
> 
> The title comes from Historical negationism (historical revisionism/revisionist history), the distortion of the historical record in a way that is in drastic disagreement with a historical account. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for descriptions of blood, fatal injuries, and mental trauma.

01.

It could happen like this.

Rose and Arthur the horse crash through a time window into eighteenth-century France, leaving the Doctor crumpled on the spaceship floor, a large goose egg forming from where Rose brained him, and Mickey, gaping like a fish. If rule number one is to never argue with the designated driver, rule two is never to let the designated driver swan off and abandon you without a way home. Now, all that’s left to do is wait for the Doctor to bloody get over himself and come get her. It won’t be so bad though, getting stuck in a fancy palace— canapés and champagne, bit of dancin’, bit of flirtin’ (because she can do it, too, thank you very much).

Turns out, Pre-Revolutionary France is not what she expects.  
  
For one, being a woman, even one of wealth and privilege, is absolute bollocks. The gowns weigh a ton, and if she gets groped by one more French courtier in a powdered wig, she’ll break their bloody fingers. She also discovers that Versailles, for all its opulence and splendour, fucking _reeks_. The whole palace smells absolutely mingin’ with piss and shit, stale water, and pungent body odour all topped with the cloying smell of heavy perfume.

Why the Doctor is so enamoured with this era of history is beyond her. 

Rose spends the next seven weeks unable to breathe with her waist cinched and her tits practically touching her chin, and unable to understand anyone beyond _bonjour,_ and _qui_ and maybe _voulez-vous coucher avec moi_ , but she doubts anyone will actually say the latter to her.

After day two, she re-examines that last thought.

When the Doctor finally shows up, he is not happy. Well, too bloody bad, she thinks. She is expendable, the Doctor is not. And if he’s mad that she’s stolen his moment to be the hero for _brilliant, marvellous, amazing Reinette_ (she knows that’s not fair, Reinette, for all their inability to communicate properly, has been a real mate) all the better. What an absolute tosser, swanning off like that while she and Mick were almost hacked to bits, acting like it was no big deal. If this is some Time Lord version of a midlife crisis, she’s not having it. Rose races to change, pulling her twenty-first-century clothes from where she’s stashed them under her mattress. However, halfway out of her skirts, she realizes she won’t be able to get her corset off alone. She flails about for a bit, reaching in vain for the lacing on her back, before eventually, she gives up. She’s just about to tromp out into the corridor to catch a passing servant when there’s a loud knock on the door.  
  
“Thank God,” she sighs, calling for them to enter. When the Doctor walks in, she is so surprised that for a moment, she forgets that her tits are literally spilling out over her shift and can only stare as the Doctor scratches at his neck awkwardly, eyes quickly averted.

“You were taking a while, so ah, I, uh, I thought I’d better check on you.”  
  
She rolls her eyes. Oh, bloody hell, they’re just breasts. “I’ve been gone fifteen minutes tops. Besides, I thought you’d want time alone with the Madame.”

“Rose, I’m a Time Lord, I think I know a thing or two about the passage of time.” She notices he doesn’t bite on the other dig.

“Oh, right,” she scoffs, “ _Mr. Twelve Months_ wants to talk time with me.”  
  
The Doctor’s jaw flairs as he clenches. “Do you want help or not?”

She was so relieved to see him mere minutes ago, but now she’d like nothing more than to tell him to piss off. Why is she so angry? Well, she knows why she’s angry, but she’d rather not analyze that intricate swirl of feelings that will do neither of them any good. Rose says nothing, biting back a retort, and turns around to face the tall gilded mirror. The Doctor steps up behind her, and she hates that her heart begins to pound in her ears at the feel of his hands on her stays like some sort of _Mills and Boon_ bodice ripper. Rose drops her gaze to the floor, chewing at her nail. When she glances up, the Doctor is staring back at her, and she meets his unfathomably dark eyes. 

“Don’t ever do something like that again.” His voice is stern, and something curls tight within her belly.

Rose pushes back against that. “You were going to do the exact same thing, and then where would we all be? Mick and I stranded on some nightmare spaceship in the distant future, and you stuck here with no way back. Honestly, Doctor, you should be thanking me for saving you from your stupid ideas.”

 _“Rose,”_ he says firmly, stressing her name in a way she rarely hears anymore, not in this new version of himself. There’s a vulnerability to it, maybe even quiet desperation, and the sound of it forms a lump in her throat. “Never again. Promise me.”  
  
His hands are nearing the small of her back. The corset loosens, and she brings her arms up to keep it pressed to her chest. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, the irritation fleeing as quickly as it had arrived. “I promise.” He nods as if the matter is settled. It doesn’t seem fair, though, that the Doctor can be an utter arsehole, and she’s just supposed to accept it and move on. “But you have to promise me, too.” She says, heart galloping in her chest again. “We’re a team, yeah? Cause the way you were actin’ before on the spaceship didn’t feel like it.” The Doctor gives no acknowledgement of her words; head bowed, eyes focused on his task. But then she feels the soft brush of his fingers on her bare skin, like a gentle caress. Did he do that on purpose? It felt like it could be. She stares at his reflection, trying to avoid noticing her flushed cheeks and the slight heave of her chest and focuses on the Doctor’s hair.

When he meets her gaze again, he looks contrite, but there is something like affection shining in his eyes. “I promise,” he says softly. 

The good-byes are not as awkward as she’d imagined they’d be. Mickey is waiting in the TARDIS, the Doctor tells her, not willing to risk it in an era where slavery still very much exists.

“Adieu, my sweet saviour,” Reinette says softly, pressing a kiss to each of her cheeks. “I shall remember you with great affection.” The Doctor meets her eye as she passes into the TARDIS, and she bites her lip to stop herself from saying anything. Despite what she might want, Rose knows Reinette deserves this moment, and if the Doctor invites her along, so be it.

Still, she can’t deny the relief that flows her though when the Doctor returns alone a few moments later and begins the dematerialization sequence.

02.

It could happen like this.  
  
The Doctor steps through the time window that brings him back to the fifty-first-century spaceship, necktie wrapped around his head and his blood thrumming pleasantly with crisp champagne, banana daiquiris, and expensive French perfume to the sounds of terrified, agonized, screaming. 

_“Rose!”_ A voice yells over and over, more hysterical with each cry, and the Doctor feels like there are fists suddenly clenching like a vice around his hearts. He takes off running towards the sound of Mickey's voice, who continues to cry and shout in distress. As he rounds the corner, sonic screwdriver out and powering down the droids as he runs, he skids, slipping on something wet pooling on the floor and looks down in horror to see bright red splats now covering his once white plimsolls.  
  
 _No, no, no._

The scene that awaits him is worse than he could have imagined. 

Before him lays Rose and Mickey, both strapped down to metal gurneys by those homicidal androids. Mickey is fighting against his restraints as the droids seize up, but the Doctor can’t focus on that. All he can look at is Rose, so pale and breathing shallowly, drenched in her blood. He rushes towards her, pressing his hands to her neck, but it’s useless. They’ve severed her left common carotid, and it only takes moments for her to bleed out. She stares up at the Doctor, eyes wide and shining with fear and pain before they go slack, blank, _dead_.

 _“Don’t touch her,”_ Mickey screams, sobbing as he continues to struggle. _“Don’t fuckin’ touch her. Rose! Rose! Rose!”_

Mickey can scream all he wants. It won’t wake her. Nothing will wake her. Nothing will make her smile that tongue touched cheeky grin of hers, those warm, dark eyes of hers he loves so much glinting with amusement or joy.

Rose is dead.

He’d danced and drank and flirted, and all the while, Rose had been dying on the other side of the mirror. He had left her behind without a thought, and now his hands are warm with her blood. The air is ripe with it; his olfactory inundated with iron oxide and ferrous ions reacting to the lipid peroxides on his— _her_ skin, producing the carbonyl compounds to create that metallic, rusted smell, till he feels like he’s gagging on it. As if on autopilot, he uses the sonic to release both Mickey and Rose from their restraints. Once free, Mickey hurls himself towards Rose, cradling her gently as he pulls her to him, her upper body twisting limply away from the gurney.  
  
“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” Mickey sobs, rocking her lifeless body in his arms. “The Doc’s here, he’ll fix it. Right?” Mickey turns to look at him, his face desperately hopeful. “You can just go back in time and save her, yeah?”  
  
But he can’t fix it. There is nothing he can do. Rose’s death is now a fixed point.

“I- I can’t,” he chokes out.  
  
Mickey’s face crumples with anger and anguish. “What do you mean? You have a fucking time machine. You’re literally the only person who can do that.”

“I can’t.” The Doctor mumbles numbly. “I can’t stop people dying.” Rose’s hair is matted red, her shirt, her jeans, her lovely, soft peaches and cream skin.

Everything is red. 

Red as his planet burned, red as Rose’s life spilled out around them.

“But you stopped those robots from killin’ the people in the palace. Why is now different? Why is Rose different? It’s Rose, Doctor. _It’s Rose._ ” Mickey bellows, cradling Rose tighter to his chest. “You _promised_ to keep her safe. That she could always come home to Jackie and me. You promised, Doctor!”

 _Oh, Jackie._ He promised to always protect her. Rose was going to spend the rest of her life with him— it was supposed to be seventy, eighty years down the road, not the very next day.

 _Rose,_ his mind is crying, more wretchedly and agonizing than any sound Mickey could make. _Rose. Rose. Roseroserose…_

03.

It could happen like this.

The Doctor is stuck in 1758. While smashing through a mirror on his noble steed and shattering the time windows had been brilliant, _molto bene_ , in the moment, it was also an almost immediately regrettable choice. Not only is he now forced to take the slow path, but he’s been separated from his beautiful ship and the one person he can’t bear to be without. His only choice now is to put out a distress call and try to hitch a ride with a younger version of himself back to the fifty-first-century spaceship. All in all, it could be worse, he supposes.

It’s fine for a few days. Reinette is intelligent and charming company, and her admiration for him is _very_ flattering. But he also realizes that he’s tampering with history by lingering, so in the end, he leaves Versailles, not wanting to watch Reinette succumb to tuberculosis in five years and knowing he can’t do anything to stop it happening. _Everything has its time_ , Sarah Jane had sagely reminded him. And though it’s tragic to see a woman as bright as Madame de Pompadour burn out so early in life, to see the timelines swirling with the potential turns her life could have taken, he won’t interfere.Reinette is hurt by his decision to leave, that somehow, though she is both a wife and the official mistress to the King of France, she had sole claim over the Doctor as well. But he knows what she feels is infatuation and hero-worship, not love. He certainly doesn’t love her, and while he admires her and her contributions to arts and culture and political thought, he won’t stand around to watch her wither and die.

It hits too close to the bone, the shine of her golden hair too similar for him to disassociate from painful truths he’d rather not think on. Especially now, when he cannot reach for the hand he suddenly longs to hold.

Instead, the Doctor does what he's always done, he travels. He drinks coffee with Voltaire and Rousseau in Parisian Salons, listens to Bach perform concerts in Vienna, and visits the court of Catherine the Great and her cheeky furnishings. He misses the TARDIS and Rose like an ache, keeping a mental list of all the places he will take her when they’re reunited. Saint Petersburg is definitely on the list. She would love the Amber Room. It would match her eyes beautifully.

By pure luck, his distress call in picked up a mere four years later, by his first incarnation when he was travelling with Steven and Vicki and fresh off an adventure with Benjamin Franklin in London. The relief that washes through him is staggering as he steps back into his beautiful ship and feels her loving presence in his mind once more. He thinks maybe that was the most painful thing about this whole thing, how utterly empty his mind felt. Though being without Rose is a close second. However, crippling panic sets in when he soon realizes he doesn’t know the date or name of the spaceship Rose and Mickey are on.

How could he not know what ship they were on? How could he not have even checked the date? _Oh, Rassilon,_ how will he ever find them when he has a whole century to sift through. What if something has happened to them on the ship? Did he check to make sure there were no more clockwork droids?

“How could you not know this beforehand?” The other Doctor asks, clearly unimpressed. “Is this really how reckless and careless I become?”

He feels shame at this. He’d been so caught up in the moment, of getting to be the hero and save the day, that he hadn’t even bothered to make sure Rose and Mickey were safe or that he had a way of getting back to them.

 _You just leave us behind. Is that what you're gonna do to me?_ Rose had asked, tears in her eyes and the light from the chippy glowing behind her.

He’ll tear the galaxy apart, searching for Rose if he has to. This won’t be how it ends for them. It can’t.

04\. 

It could happen like this.

The Doctor, reunited with his TARDIS and his companions once more, brings Madame de Pompadour aboard, and they set off for the stars. The TARDIS, however, has different plans, and they crash land in a strange parallel world where the sky is full of zeppelins, and Pete Tyler is a millionaire Entrepreneur. In the scuttle of introducing Reinette to the future and dealing with a sick TARDIS being in a world she should never have landed in, Rose and Mickey slip off and are nowhere to be found when the Doctor finally notices they've disappeared.  
  
“I am sure they are fine, my Angel,” Reinette soothes, which only irritates him more. “This is where they are from, is it not?”

But it’s not where they’re from. Parallel worlds are like gingerbread houses and are incredibly dangerous, especially when there are temptations like undead fathers. Of course, Rose has run off to try and find Pete. He should have kept a better eye on her, but things have been _strained_ since he invited Reinette along, and he’s somewhat ashamed to admit he was too busy peacocking to notice he only had an audience of one, rather than three. 

He doesn’t know where Mickey might be, but to find Pete Tyler is to find Rose, he determines, and Rose will always be his priority. When the Doctor and Reinette finally track the Tyler’s mansion down, they find Rose, costumed in a little serving outfit, amidst disaster and calamity. Honestly, what else is new.

Cybermen.

Of all the terrors in the world, why does it have to be Cybermen.

They stop the invasion and Lumic because that’s what they do, but it leaves scars on all of them. Rose has seen a parallel Jackie brutally cyberized. Mickey has essentially witnessed himself being murdered, and Reinette, well, Reinette might have been the most damaged of all of them. Reinette has just seen the horrors that surround technological advancement, and it has left her traumatized.

“Is this really what the future is?” She asks, tears clouding her eyes, hands shaking as she wraps her arms tightly around herself. “Dear merciful God, is this what is to happen to us— man becomes soulless and heartless to others. If man cannot feel, we are no better than savage animals. How can one go on, knowing this terrible future awaits us? I thought the future would be wondrous, but this is— this is hell.” She shudders again, tremors wracking her body. “How can you bear it? How can you bear any of this?”

“Because I must.” Is all he can reply, but it is woefully not enough to ease Reinette’s suffering. 

The truth is, he doesn’t have an answer. For every goodness in the universe, there is also terror— darkness to balance out the light. Reinette can’t see the humanity and tragedy behind John Lumic’s actions; she can only see the pain and destruction it has caused. The truth is somedays the only thing that makes it better is the feel of Rose’s hand in his. But right now, he doesn’t even have that. It seems every time he goes to reach for her, Rose is already moving ahead of him, choosing to pair up with the man she’s always longed to know.

In the end, he should have known this might happen.  
  
“I’m staying too,” Rose says, her declaration on the heels of Mickey’s.

Mickey is his own man, looking to make his own way in the world, and the Doctor won’t stop him. But he’ll be damned if he seals up a universe between himself and Rose.

Leaving Rose is not an option.

Instead, the Doctor grabs hold of her arm, and bodily drags her back into the TARDIS, queuing up the dematerialization sequence. Rose tries to fight him, shoving and hollering, her hands smacking at anything she can reach of him, but he just tightens his grip and hauls her up the ramp as Reinette stares on in muted shock. Rose can hate him all she wants right now, but when she comes to her senses, she’ll be relieved. This is just an impulsive, snap decision, something which Rose is prone to.

Rose storms off, her body wracked with angry sobs and the Doctor white knuckles the console, trying to control his own unsteady breathing. Rose wanted to leave him today. Despite what he had told himself, that placing a bit of distance between himself and Rose was for the best, the idea that she would really leave has shaken him to his core.

It wasn’t an unknown foe or perilous adventure that had almost separated them this time. It was him and his actions. 

As if he needed another reminder of how terrible his decision making has been lately, he looks over at Reinette, wan and clearly in distress by the jump seat.

“I want to go home,” she murmurs.“Please, Doctor, I implore you. Return me.”

Well, he can’t say he blames her. “Don’t you want to see the stars?”

She shakes her head, her expression heartbroken and desperately upset. “I thought I understood, but this life that you and Rose choose to lead, it is not one I can share with you. It is not one I desire any part of. What I have seen today—” she looks away, blinking back tears. “I am not made for this world. Please, Doctor,” she begs now. “Please take it from me.”

He can see it now, the trauma that has shrouded her. Another thing that’s his fault. If he returns Reinette to her time after what she’s seen, who knows what will happen. Besides, how can he leave her like this, when he is to blame.

So he takes the memory from her.

When Reinette wakes the next day, the Doctor and her time on the TARDIS will be nothing more than a hazy, undefined memory, like all childhood dreams.

05.

It could happen like this.

When the Doctor returns to the spaceship, Reinette’s fireplace saving him from being stranded in the 1760s, his TARDIS and companions are nowhere to be found. He searches around in vain for several hours before concluding that they are simply gone.

That must mean either Rose or the TARDIS activated Emergency Programme One.

How long was the time lag on this end?

His first step is to flag down a Time Agent, or one of his previous selves. He’d prefer a younger TARDIS obviously, but honestly, he’ll take whatever he can get.

But time travel is an imprecise science, even in the hands of an expert, and the Vortex Manipulator he eventually commandeers overshoots the timeline he’s set and lands him in 2008 rather than 2006. He also seems to arrive in London, Canada, rather than London, England. Minor issues in the long run, really. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump across the pond, and as long as he doesn’t see anyone from Rose’s timeline, he can pop into the TARDIS, and no-one will be the wiser when he arrives properly in 2006.

Except he is quick to realize with horror that there is more than just the year and location that’s wrong. The whole timeline is off, wrong in a way that has his head pounding in pain from its effects on his time sense. Earth has been ravaged by an abomination that just won’t die— Daleks, the universe's cockroaches. Millions of them, swarming like locusts and every other symbol of the Judaeo-Christian apocalypse. This is the end of days. It is his nightmares come to life before his very eyes. the Time War waging once more and somewhere Ro—  
  
 _Rose_

Fear tears through him like a tidal wave. Oh no, Rose. Anything could have happened to her. She could even be dead for all he knows. That though sends an icy cold tendril of terror down his spine. She can’t be, not his Rose. 

How could this have happened? He watched Rose as Bad Wolf wipe them from existence, watched them burn up into golden ashes. How is it possible for them to be here now? And in so many?

This is his fault. He should have been here to stop this. He was supposed to have stopped this! None of this is right. The Doctor feels powerless in a way he has not felt in so long. Maybe ever— certainly not since the end of the Time Lords. 

What can he do?

_What can he possibly do?_

06.

It happens like this.

The Doctor saves the day, and in return, is saved himself by the very thing that caused this whole mess— a girl and her fireplace.

He lets his head fill with wonder and excitement, caught up in the thrilling adventure and mystery of it all, only to have it all come crashing down around him in broken promises and hurt.

To one woman, he promises never to leave her behind.

To another, he promises the stars.

He keeps neither, and both women are left waiting in vain for a man they have built up as something he’s simply not. He is a romantic hero to one, her mysterious saviour who she feels bonded to from a glimpse into his mind. To the other, he is— they are— well they are _them_ she supposes, and they are in whatever _this_ is together. Or at least she thought they were. 

Rose forgives and moves on from her hurt feelings as she always does. If there are things she wants to say— words that burn in her belly, stuff like how bloody awful he’s treated her and Mickey,that he abandoned them without a thought— then she says nothing. Because this is who the Doctor is now, it’s his show, and the rest of them are just supporting characters, beloved maybe, but ultimately replaceable.

To the Doctor, this day just becomes another one of many that he’ll smother down to the deepest recesses of his mind. He’ll repress the horror of watching someone age and die in the span of a few mere hours, and the painful reminder of what that means for someone he cares about as much as he does Rose.

That in the blink of his eye, she’ll be gone, too, nothing more than a bloody letter.

Oh well, it’s best to move on. 


End file.
